Zakat on Savings: Multiple Accounts

[Zakat in Practice (part 11)]

[Introduction: This series is a sharing on zakat from the perspective of a financial planner. It is hoped to be educational, informative as well as practical to help readers better understand Zakat, especially Zakat on Wealth, as a Muslim in Singapore.

Topics to include: Zakat on Investment, Zakat on Savings, and Zakat on Estate.]

[Previously: Zakat on Savings: Savings in the bank ]

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First and foremost, we need to understand why one would have more than one savings account.

More often than not, it is meant to cater to different purposes, such as:

• Transactional/Expenses
• Emergency fund
• Savings/Accumulation

Transactional accounts and Emergency fund are necessities. Whereas zakat is only applicable on excess or surplus of wealth.

Hence, it is in my personal understanding as a financial planner, as well as a Shariah student, that zakat is not applicable on transactional accounts and emergency funds, even though they are “savings accounts” in name.

Zakat is only applicable on the third type of account which one uses to grow or accumulate one’s savings, in general.

It is possible for one not to pay zakat on savings (accumulation/growth account) under certain conditions and circumstances, which I will elaborate in a subsequent post.

(To be continued)